


With the sky on his back

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:00:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel compares the Winchesters and himself to figures of greek mythology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With the sky on his back

Castiel knows the myth of Tantalus well enough to know he is Tantalus, his story forged by a cruel father who toys around with a son who has lost faith in him. Or perhaps this has nothing to do with God, he considers. He's learned by now fate is nothing but a map fools decide to follow claiming their feet move on their own, prophecies set in clay rather than stone, but never mind what "fate" means and the weigh it carries, the point is, Cas is Tantalus. He is up to his chin in water that drains away when he bows down to drink it, and the fruit dangles over his head but he can never reach it. He'd tried, he really had, but since he clawed his way into Hell to rescue the Righteous Man he's lost something, maybe purpose, maybe faith, maybe himself, and for the first time he realized he had been left to starve, that no matter how quick he bent down to drink or stretched his arms to grab the fruit they were not his to take; for the first time he realized he had been standing in a flooded pit, and then the water kept running out when he felt like he was near reaching something like closure to this vicious cycle, when he thought Armageddon was the way to go, when he thought stopping the apocalypse was the end of it only to find a war in the place he'd once called home, and then he tried playing God when he was nothing more than a child wearing daddy's too-large-shoes, and the water turned sour and the fruit started to rot.  
(Sometimes he thinks the fruit is Dean, but he quickly shakes the thought away even when he's still stuck staring at Dean's strong, calloused hands).

Cas thinks Dean is Prometheus.  
He keeps hoping he'll make it through the day in one piece, but he knows better. So he turns to alcohol, never mind the irony that it picks at his liver like the eagle in his mythological counterpart, because in his version the bird doesn't stop at his liver, it completely destroys him, and how else can he cope with being ripped open and put back together just to make next stab will be more painful than the last and keep carving into his flesh until there is nothing left to tear apart, start over and repeat?

He thinks Sam is Sisyphus, carrying his past, his present, his future, the family business, Jess and Mom burning on the ceiling, all the way up the hill just so his heavy burden can roll back down. He knows it will but can't do a thing about it, and sometimes he thinks of just letting go, let the rock fall and set him free, but he knows it's no use and he'll have to go back down and start over, so he just keeps going until it rolls down again crushing him in the process.

Which one of them is more broken, Castiel doesn't know. All he can do is dream.  
(Dreaming is one of the most beautiful and yet tragic things humanity has taught him, and he has learned it doesn't always require sleeping)  
He dreams of a world where Prometheus somehow breaks his chains and holds out his hand to Tantalus, not letting go even when he's helped him out of the water. Tantalus patches up his open wounds and chases away the eagle and the bad thoughts and the tears falling from eyes green as forests, and they both climb up Sisyphus' hill and help him push the rock to the top. It takes effort, but they manage it, and even though Sisyphus is sore and tired it counts as a victory. Maybe at the top of the hill, when Tantalus strokes Prometheus' knuckles with his thumb, the one who introduced men to fire will look at his face and see something he had never noticed before, and kiss Tantalus softly, just a brush of lips, and when they open their eyes they will smile while Sisyphus rolls his eyes but doesn't hide his grin. The three of them will sit atop of the hill and watch the sun go down.  
But that's not how myths end, so all he does is dream while the Winchesters deal with it through Jack Daniels' and blades stained with the blood of shapeshifters and vampires.

Castiel thinks they're all Atlas, bearing the weight of the sky on their shoulders for the rest of eternity, and in this version, there's no Heracles to build giant pillars to release them from their task.


End file.
